James H. Westwood

TL;DR: This review focuses on the Orobanchaceae, which are unique among the parasitic plants in that extant member species include the full range of host dependence from facultative to obligate parasites.

TL;DR: Data show that Cuscuta campestris haustoria accumulate high levels of many novel microRNAs (miRNAs) while parasitizing Arabidopsis thaliana, and suggest that they may act as virulence factors during parasitism.

TL;DR: Functional analyses of parasitic plant strigolactone receptors in transgenic Arabidopsis suggested that convergent evolution has occurred to allow the parasitic plants to detect their hosts, and it was observed that KAI2, but not D14, is present at higher copy numbers in parasitic species than in nonparasitic relatives.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that parasitic plants can exchange large proportions of their transcriptomes with hosts, providing potential mechanisms for RNA-based interactions between species and horizontal gene transfer.

TL;DR: This study showed that the other expressed AtFLS sequences have tissue- and cell type-specific promoter activities that overlap with those of At FLAVONOL SYNTHASE1 and encode proteins that interact with other flavonoid enzymes in yeast two-hybrid assays, suggesting that these “pseudogenes” have alternative, noncatalytic functions that have not yet been uncovered.